My daughter read me about Jesus being our stronghold which caused me to want to look up strongholds and understand that word better. I came across this blog post from David Wilkerson. It seems to be worth the read, may we all make Jesus our stronghold.

DEALING WITH OUR STRONGHOLDS
Many Christians quote 2 Corinthians 10:3–4: “We do not war after the flesh: for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.” Most of us think of strongholds as bondages such as sexual trespasses, drug addictions, alcoholism—outward sins we put at the top of a worst-sins list. But Paul is referring here to something much worse than our human measuring of sins.

First of all, he isn’t speaking of demonic possession. In my opinion, the devil cannot enter the heart of any overcoming Christian and claim a place in that person. Rather, the figurative meaning of Paul’s word stronghold in Greek here is “holding firmly to an argument.” A stronghold is an accusation planted firmly in your mind. Satan establishes strongholds in God’s people by implanting in their minds lies, falsehoods and misconceptions, especially regarding God’s nature.

For instance, the enemy may plant in your mind the lie that you’re unspiritual, totally unworthy of God’s grace. He may whisper to you repeatedly, “You’ll never be free of your besetting sin. You haven’t tried hard enough. You haven’t changed. And now God has lost patience with you because of your continual ups and downs.”

Or the devil may try to convince you that you have a right to hold on to bitterness because you’ve been wronged. If you keep listening to his lies, you’ll begin to believe them after a while.
Satan is the accuser of the brethren, coming against us time after time with his army of accusers, planting demonic lies in our minds. These lies are his stronghold—and if we don’t resist them by God’s Word, they will turn into imbedded fears in our minds.

The only weapon that scares the devil is the same one that scared him in the wilderness temptations of Jesus. That weapon is the truth of the living Word of God. According to Micah, here is the promise we are to cling to: “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:18–19). In Hebrew, the word subdue means “he will trample on them.” We do not subdue our sins; he will subdue them through repentance and faith.
Posted by David Wilkerson

Train Up Tuesday: Peanuts and Popcorn for Thanksgiving

If you are like me, you love the last quarter of the year for many reasons, one of those being the Charles Schulz Peanuts TV specials. No doubt you have seen “ A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”; it’s a classic, for sure. But have you seen the bonus cartoon “This is America, Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers”? If you have the DVD version, be sure that you don’t skip over it. If you don’t have it, it is scheduled to air on Thanksgiving day. What a great way to round out the day or to expose family members to our countries’ true founding (the cartoon is quite accurate in most things...but don’t forget, it IS a cartoon).

The original classic, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is great, too. I remember watching it a few years ago wondering, “What kind of kooky meal is Snoopy, Charlie, & Linus coming up with? Toast, jelly beans and popcorn?” Do you know, it wasn’t until I watched it again this year and remembered, “Oh, yeah, popcorn is actually quite Thanksgivingy.” Let’s not forget, it was the native Americans who introduced this treat.

So, this Thanksgiving, consider popping in “Peanuts” on the TV and having some popcorn, too. Perhaps you could even strand some of the kernel goodness for table decor or a tree outside (to remind your neighbors, too)! :)

Have fun!

-Ashlie

Stay-at-home Saturday: A Tip and a Lesson

Did you know?
You should clean your coffee maker regularly to prevent impurities from tainting the taste of your coffee. Here’s an easy way to do it: Put a ½ cup of white vinegar in your pot and fill the rest of the way with water. Add to the coffee maker and brew. Pour out water and refill with a full pot of water. Brew. Voila! A clean machine! (By the way, I got this from Woman's Day magazine a few months ago. I wish I could claim to have come up with so many nifty ideas but I can't!)

Pumpkin Lessons

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, you may need to use the following information that I'm about to share. Have you heard that there is a shortage of canned pumpkin this year? Well, there is, so you'll need this critical information more than ever: I roasted and pureed my own pumpkin this year. I'm not sure why, but I had this need to do something homemade and maybe to save a little money in the process. Let me say that I did not enjoy this process, not one bit, so my perspective is a little on the, ah, negative side. If you have done this before and had a great experience I'd love to hear from you.

First, let me say that the pumpkin my dear husband chose for me to roast was way too big for this job. Way too big.

The pumpkins at the pumpkin patch that were good for pies, etc. were all $4, no matter the size. So we walked off with a prize-winning pumpkin that I had to wrestle when I started my task. You are supposed to be able to chop off the top, then cut it in half, then quarters. Well, I just had to cut off any side I could, and here is the result: After you get the pumpkin cut into quarters (or manageable pieces, in my case) you scrape off the seeds and strings. No one prepared me for how gross this was. I was not expecting the seeds and stringy-ness to be so slimy. Shudder. Oh, and it stained my hand orange. I was told not to discard the seeds so that they can later be roasted. I set them aside to deal with later. Update: I roasted the pumpkin seeds. I burned them.

After you scrape the sections clean then you put them on a roasting pan. You don’t have to put any oil on them but I recommend spraying your pan, as I now have two pans with permanent spots on them where I can’t get the pumpkin residue off.

Into the oven they go for about an hour on 400 degrees. You’ll know they are ready when they are fork-tender. When they have cooled enough, you separate the pumpkin “meat” from the skin. There’s probably a better way to do this, but I was so over this project by this time that I just ran a knife under the meat and called it done.
Dump your pumpkin into your food processor or blender and purée away! If needed you can add a few tablespoons of water, but my pumpkin was plenty juicy so I puréed for a minute or so, scraped down the sides, and puréed some more. Here is what I got: I poured one-cup portions into bags and stuck them in the freezer. Done! Thank goodness. I got 6 cups of purée out of my pumpkin, so at $4 that’s about $0.66 a cup. Not bad I guess, but my time is worth away more than that. Next year it’s canned pumpkin for me, baby! Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

Amy

Wednesday In The Word

As I write this there are piles of laundry on my kitchen table, the floor needs to be vacummed and the dogs are barking because they are hungry but I feel compelled to just sit down and write this Wednesday In The Word. Perhaps, your house or life feels like mine right now but God wants to speak to you as He did to me.

Lately, some interesting choices have come into my life. I have even laid awake at night trying to sort out motivations because I don't want to do any thing that God does not want me to do. I have lived enough life to know about the self inflicted chaos that comes from just choosing to do something without asking God what He would want me to do. Last week as I tossed and turned and prayed it was if God said to me, "Glenda do you love me?" Of course, my answer was,"yes." Then it was followed with this question, "Do you love me with your whole heart?" That answer was yes. Finally, I was given a peace that I had not known, it was if God was saying to me that this is all He wants.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 6:4,5

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you might.

From the rooftop:

If you know Jesus all He ever cares about is your heart being His

If your heart is 100 percent His you are free and not bond by old stuff that used to hold you back

We have the will and mind to decide to love God with our whole heart

It is freeing to love God with our whole heart because He is in control of all things and not limited to the little boxes that we put Him in.

God's love for us is unending and has no boundaries. Can our love for Him be the same? He has places for us all to go, people for us to talk to and things for us to see that we can not even imagine. He wants to use us to bring people into a relationship with His Son, Jesus. He may take us to the most unexpected. exciting places if we just love Him with our whole heart and ask Him where He wants us to go.

I love you,
Glenda

Train Up Tuesday: Lessons from the Mayflower

Well, did you have a chance to get a copy of “The Light and the Glory” after reading last week’s mini-review? I hope so! I’m learning so much from it, being reminded of our nation’s true heritage, and am being challenged in my own life.

I’m sure those of you who honor the Thanksgiving holiday in true form with moments of giving thanks are looking forward to sharing what God has done for you in the past year or how He has ministered to you. An attitude of gratitude is indeed a beautiful thing.

In your reflection over the last year, don’t forget about the moments when you have been squeezed tightly. What “juices” have oozed from you in those moments? I hope they have been precious ointment and a lovely fragrance (like Glenda wrote about last week). I wish I could say that’s always the case for me. Even if I thought I could get by and say it is the case...my kiddos could tell you it didn’t always go that way.

Let’s consider those Pilgrims of the Mayflower. No doubt, most of us remember that the 102 Pilgrims were in pretty cramped quarters while trekking through the Atlantic for a new home. As Marshall & Manuel describe it:

“ [they] huddled in the lantern-lit darkness of the low-ceilinged ‘tween-decks’ women and small children allowed to have the captain’s cabin; no hatches open because of continuous storms; all non-essential personnel required to stay below decks; the constant crying of small children; no chance to cook any meals.”

All this for seven weeks, people! It’s almost as if they were sailing in a huge coffin. Just reading this alone almost makes my skin crawl and feel a little claustrophobic! No doubt hidden, buried sins were coming up to the surface and had to be faced, repented of, and cleansed. Fortunately, these travelers were no foreigners to on-your-face prayer.

The most amazing thing of their trials in just getting there is the testimony that they left with the crew members...but I’m not giving that away; you’ll have to read up on that yourself. ;-)

Don’t you wonder about those families? We may elevate them to a “sainthood” status because they were Pilgrims. But, I think they were probably a lot like you and me. When squeezed really tight, their hidden ugliness came to light and had to be dealt with in all humility. Can you think back on those times when you and children faced a storm together? Perhaps you did react in a way you didn’t want your kids to learn to repeat. Did you use it as an opportunity to learn together? In the end, did you see evidence of the impact your testimony had to those surrounding you? The world is looking for examples of God in families thriving together. Don’t forget to celebrate making it through a storm in the last year as you share your victories over the Thanksgiving holiday!

This leads me to share a family tradition in our household. Although we all intend to have a heart of gratitude, the business of the day or the awkwardness of family openness (or lack thereof) often prohibits actually sharing things together. About 3 years ago, I came across the idea somewhere to write out your thankfulness on a tablecloth to be reused each year. It’s been wonderful to see our family expand (seriously...in 3 years we’ve had 2 marriages and 5 children to increase the brood) and to see the progression of thanks. It’s a nice way to preserve those memories.

Much love,

Ashlie

Lunchbox Love

I found these ADORABLE lunchbox cards at Michael's in the dollar bin. They have an encouraging note on the front and trivia on the back. Will LOVES to get a note. And, it's helping him with reading. Go to Michael's and get some, or go online at sayplease.com.

Stay-at-home Saturday: A Tip and a Recipe

Did you know?

Antibacterial dish soaps don't get your dishes any cleaner than ordinary dish soaps. Soaps with the ingredient triclosan are made to kill bacteria on your hands, not your dishes. Hot water and regular dish soap will get your dishes just as clean. Remember, using many anti-bacterial products could potentially cause resistant bacteria to emerge. You'll end up killing weaker bacteria and be left with strong bacteria that aren't killed by these products. Yikes! (Good Housekeeping, November 2009)

A really bad day

A few days ago I had a bad day. A really bad day. I was having so much trouble with my 3 year old that I wanted to pull my hair out. Since this isn't Train Up Your Child Tuesday I won't go into the details, but it was one of Those Days.

I noticed something throughout the course of this Really Bad Day. I wanted cake with icing all day. I dreamed of pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing and yellow cake with chocolate icing (Hello, Emotional Eater!). Since this isn't Slim Down Saturday either, I won't go into the strategies of fending off emotional eating, or how to battle your urges to binge. I will just tell you how to make chocolate icing. The very best chocolate icing you've ever tasted. It will leave you wondering why in the world you ever let Betty Crocker frost your cakes. Trust me.

This is a buttercream frosting, and making it will make you feel like a real cook, even if you're a terrible cook. I would venture to say that if you make this you will never go back to a store-bought tub again. At least that's what I was telling my husband as I was licking my fingers after making the frosting (and the bowl, and the beater, and the spatula).

Okay, here we go. The only investment you need to make for this is about $3 for unsweetened baking chocolate squares, found in the baking section alongside of chocolate chips. They may even be less than that during the holiday baking season. Otherwise the other ingredients are probably some things you keep anyway.

4 oz. cream cheese, softened (I use reduced fat cream cheese and it works fine)
3 unsweetened baking chocolate squares
1/2 stick butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 box powdered sugar
milk

1. Melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler (if you don't have one, see below).

2. Put cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar in a large bowl.

3. Add melted chocolate and butter.

4. Mix on low (otherwise the powdered sugar will cover you and your kitchen).

5. After ingredients are combined, add a splash of milk and mix. Keep adding splashes until frosting reaches the consistency of, well, frosting. (This is where I get in trouble with my dear friend, Carolina Clipper. She hates descriptions like a splash and a pinch. I'm sorry! That's all I can tell you! Just pour a little splash in and go from there.) If you don't use the icing right away you can refrigerate it. Just bring it back to room temperature before using. Here's what I did with mine. I am definitely not a professional, but not bad for a Thursday evening!

*If you don't have a double boiler don't worry, neither do I. Just put about an inch of water in a pot. Put a glass bowl (or another heat safe bowl) on top and bring the water to a simmer (don't let the water touch the bottom of the bowl). Add ingredients and stir occasionally until completely melted.

Love,

Amy